


Padlock & Key

by its_mike_kapufty



Series: AU Biscuits [1]
Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Partner Betrayal, Pining, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 11:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17827895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/its_mike_kapufty/pseuds/its_mike_kapufty
Summary: Rhett forces Link to reveal a secret he's kept for far too long.





	Padlock & Key

_“Sit.”_

Rhett all but shoved Link into the cushioned, paper-lined chair. Looming back-lit against a heaven of humming fluorescents, he scowled down in open challenge--daring his ‘best friend’ of 35 years to try and talk back. To do _anything else_ to weasel out of this, to escape the consequence of losing a bet and holding up his end of the stakes.

The wild glimpses Link shot around the room made him look all but assured. The way his knees were viced together, how each breath came from his shoulders and not his stomach, the visible bob of his throat when he swallowed, eyes glued to the door.

He knew this was it. He knew it just as undeniably as Rhett did, deep down.

No way out. The papers were signed, the goading bet and cocky confidence had carried him this far. If he ran, Rhett would simply catch him and pin him to the pavement outside.

“Rhett, this room is even smaller than the last room we were in.” His words shook, lined with a terror the taller one had never heard before.

“Yeah, it’s the _room_ you’re worried about. Sure.”

“I don’t like the look of this place,” insisted Link. He was on the verge of babbling--letting his nerves fall out of his mouth in a panicked improv as if it would teleport him literally anywhere else. “Can we go? I want to find a more reputable--”

“This place is _fine._ Look at how sterile everything is,” Rhett chirped with a forced laugh. A sanitizing station against the wall, air-tight containers of swabs and tongue depressors, a bio-hazard bin. “Heck, you should love it.”

“Rhett, I--”

The door opened and the final member of the party finally arrived. The unassuming doctor smiled, bringing out crow’s feet at his thinning hair line. “Mister… Neal,” he read from his chart, offering a hand. Link shook it weakly, mouth slack and eyes on the floor. “I see here we’re doing a removal. Is that correct?”

“Yes,” supplied Rhett without missing a beat. Link’s gaze snapped up to his, begging and wild and betrayed. Rhett did his best to mirror the doctor’s good nature, hiding the seethe underneath and hoping the expression added an extra shot of panic to Link’s adrenaline.

“Alright then. Easy peasy.” The doctor sat in a wheeled chair and scooted close to Link, who recoiled at the sudden proximity, hugging his arms close to his body. “Nervous, huh? That’s okay. Lots of people are. It’ll sting, but it probably isn’t as bad as you’ve heard. Will only take a minute.” He shifted a tower of medical instruments from the wall, dragging it closer and searching for his tool.

“Hear that, ‘bo?’” Rhett spat the last word venomously, crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “It’ll all be over in a minute.”

Speech had left Link. Catatonic, he watched as the doctor selected what looked to be a thick black pen on a cord and pulled on thick latex gloves. “Mister Neal, if you wouldn’t mind rolling up your sleeve?”

When it was clear that Link couldn’t physically do as he was asked, Rhett stepped over and grabbed the hem for him, rolling it up to reveal the tattoo: a padlock, thick and black and dripping with detail.

“Wow. Not bad. Sometimes the removals we get in here are a little… embarrassing,” the doctor laughed, lifting Link’s elbow gingerly to get a good angle.

The lazer kicked on and Link’s eyes jumped back to Rhett’s once again, brimming with regret and fear. Pleading. Whatever sympathy he sought in those green-gray reflections wasn’t to be found. But Rhett did allow his mask of self-righteous pleasure to fall, his features now darkly expectant.

 _Rhett,_ Link mouthed helplessly, digging deeper. Needing more. The taller one pushed off from the wall and took languid steps, circumventing the table so he could watch the procedure unfold. There was no doubt in his mind that if Link had been hooked up to a pulse monitor, the beeps would’ve been deafening.

“Anything we’re looking for, in particular?” the doctor asked, half-bored. Probably thinking about what he wanted for dinner as Link’s life crumbled in mere seconds.

Rhett knelt to be in his line of sight and rolled up his own sleeve. There, near the crest of his shoulder, was a small red blemish resembling a struggling flame. Spotted and flecked and organic--a mark forgettable to most who saw it. “This.”

“Gotcha.” The doctor glanced up at Link, reading the dread on his face. “This is rare, but I can’t say I’ve never seen someone do it. First time bringing in a partner though.” He leaned away to cough, never stopping the relentless lazer on Link’s stinging flesh. “There’s a flower shop across the street,” he teased, attempting to lighten the uncomfortable atmosphere.

Link screwed his eyes shut, waiting. Listening to the flickering snaps, each one forcing him to be in the moment. He felt Rhett--felt how unbearably close he was to everything: to his arm, to screaming at him, to punching him, to keeling over some sort of _brink_ from which Link would never be able to recover their friendship. All of the flowers in the world wouldn’t make a damn difference.

“There,” Rhett said, pointing. Leaning in. Pupils pinpointing in focus. Link grit his teeth together and internally cursed the doctor for taking orders from someone who shouldn’t have been in the room in the first place.

He couldn’t see what was happening on his shoulder, but he knew.

He knew when Rhett took a shuffling step back, slipped a hand over his mouth, the immediate wet at his eyes. The effortless tear that slipped down his cheek seconds before he opened the small office door and ran.

 _“Shit,_ Rhett! Wait,” gasped Link through a tight throat, lurching from the chair and tearing after him through the building towards the front doors.

Maybe he’d hoped it wouldn’t be there, after twenty years. That it had dissolved into his bloodstream as quickly as it had appeared.

The overcast sky outside hit Link with a chattering breeze when he burst onto the sidewalk. Looking up and down the street confirmed that--as impossible as it seemed--Rhett was already gone. Link let out a belabored breath, leaning back against the clinic door in defeat. Regret and guilt piled from his chest up into his mouth in sticky clumps. Listening to his heart race, he turned and regarded himself in the glass. Haltingly, he pulled up his sleeve to reveal what the doctor had done.

The padlock was mostly intact, but through the center--the thickest, darkest spot where the ink had broken--peered the mark he hadn’t seen since he was in college.

The echo of twisted flames. A gasping ember caught in a harsh wind.

Link bit the inside of his cheek at the sight of it, tasted the trickle of blood across his tongue.

The sound of a trash can crashing to the ground ripped him from his trance. Link’s breath hitched, and without thinking he bolted, heading in the direction of the noise.

The litter-strewn alleyway revealed Rhett pacing like a rabid animal, hands clenched into claws and shoulders rigid with furor. Link froze, watched as Rhett let out a bestial scream and kicked another trash can, spraying its contents across the ground before it rolled to a stop several yards away.

“Rhett,” called Link, his voice breaking in the chilled air.

When Rhett turned, the tears streaking his cheeks from puffy red eyes were obvious even at a distance. He panted, watching Link. Waiting.

“Rhett, I… I am _so_ sorry.” The smaller one took timid steps between the buildings, closing the distance to injury. Preemptively he held up his hands, begging for mercy in the space between them. “I never meant to hurt you.”

Rhett’s face twisted into a snarl and he was on Link instantly, rough hands digging into his shirt and slamming him against the alley wall, affixing him to the red brick.

“Do you have _any fucking idea_ how hard it’s been, Link?!” His words were strained and searing, arms trembling against Link’s chest as the brunette watched his flaring teeth, helpless. “Pretending I don’t know it’s you when it’s been you the entire time? Living like there could possibly be anyone else out there for me?! D’you know how impossible it was?” In the pause, Link blinked, more fragile and small than he’d ever been against Rhett’s onslaught. _“Answer me!!”_

He couldn’t.

“I knew. I knew the _second_ you got that goddamn tattoo. It happened, and you ran. You slapped a band-aid on it, like that could make it go away. But _you_ didn’t go away. That was your mistake.” Rhett’s shouts dropped to an injured whisper, eyes searching Link’s desperately. “You think I wanted this, back then? You think I wanted to know I was gonna end up with my best friend whether I liked it or not? No. But at least I had the fuckin’ dignity to stick around for it. To not hide the _second_ it was confirmed.”

Link’s hands wrapped weakly around Rhett’s wrists.

“Why wasn’t I worth being brave for?” Rhett grimaced, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks.

Link swallowed, affronted with the face of a festering wound two decades old. Permanent damage he’d caused to the most important person in his life. A result of the only promise he'd made to himself the day the ink stung his bare skin.

“I stayed. I’m still here,” he choked, and Rhett swelled in and caught his mouth in a starved kiss. Wrapped him in his arms and crushed their bodies together against the grimed wall, killing the invisible barrier that had kept them apart their entire lives.

Link’s fingers wove into Rhett’s hair as he melted into sobs. When their kiss broke, it was Rhett’s turn to know--he knew what he would’ve done all those years ago and let that instinct return full-force to chase Link’s tears with possessive kisses, peppering his wet cheeks and the corners of his mouth. Undamming thousands of days of knowing, missing, and wanting.

“I’m so sorry, Rhett.”

“Thank god you didn’t leave.”

 


End file.
